Sunday and Monday night, you must scan the Western sky after dark. The moon will be a full quarter, and nearby it, you can't miss Jupiter. The giant planet looks like a brightly glowing "star" just to the moon's left (tonight) and then to the moon's right (on Monday.) Like all planets, Jupiter will not twinkle, twinkle, like a distant star, but shine, headlight steady.

But that isn't all you can easily find up there. Jupiter hangs up there midway between two special constellations. I know, I know, you can never find them, but with Jupiter's help you can, if the skies are clear. Look up to the right of Jupiter for a hazy cluster of seven stars, the Pleiades. You know this constellation well. It is immortalized as the Subaru logo on every car and in every Subaru ad.

Don't worry if the stars aren't clear to you. In ancient Sparta, these stars were used as a vision test for Spartan warriors. You have to have nearly 20/20 eyesight to see all seven stars. Try this test for yourself. In other cultures, stories had these Seven Sisters hurled up into the sky to save them from, variously, lusty old Zeus or a randy Indian Chief.

Now look to Jupiter's left. Scan about for a bright twinkling dusky, faintly reddish star. That is Aldebaron, the glowing angry eye of Taurus, the bull. Actually, it is a double star 68 light years away, but no matter how you squint, you can't see that.

Now look straight up. The winter constellation Orion, the hunter, dominates the sky. Don't panic. He has enough easy identifying markers to let you stargaze like a pro. Smack in the middle of the hunter is his belt, a perfect line of three stars. Dangling from his belt is a small sword of fainter stars.

Yes, he has superhero shoulders and knees, and they are easy to find, too. Straight up from his belt, look for a bright distinctly reddish star. That is Betelgeuse, a variable supergiant, even redder than Taurus' angry eye, Aldebaran. To prove just how red they are, look below Orion's belt for yet another bright star, Rigel. That star is clearly not red, but a distinctly blue-white and startlingly different in color from the red stars you've found.

Be patient if there are clouds tonight and tomorrow. You will find the stars in these exact patterns night after night. Planets, like Jupiter, shift around in the sky, hiding for weeks at a time. The moon wanders throughout the sky every night and disappears for 2-3 days every month at the "dark of the moon." But you can count on the stars.

On a clear night, you can count 2,000 stars. Throughout the ages, sailors have named and trusted these same stars to navigate the high seas. For a more modern look at the whole starry sky, keep in mind that NASA and international astronomers are finding solar systems of planets circling nearly every one of those stars. There are infinite numbers of planets out there, endless numbers the same size as Earth.

The brave scientist Galileo risked it all to announce his finding that the Earth circles the sun. The Roman Catholic Church excommunicated him for it. Why? Because according to ancient Bible lessons, God created Earth at the center of his universe and humankind as the pinnacle of all his work there. We, then, are God's most important creation. What would those clerics of the Middle Ages have thought if they knew then what we know now?

There is more of a miracle out there that you can see, if the air is clear enough and you are not near street lamps. Sweeping in a faint arc over the whole sky, the vast filmy Milky Way glows mysteriously. The ancients thought it a pathway to heaven, a bridge for the sun to sneak back during the night, or a ghostly route where the gods -- or the departed -- could look down on our actions. Science has solved that mystery and firmly put us into our place.

Good old Galileo studied the Milky Way through his early telescope and declared it a huge mass of stars, a galaxy. He found other galaxies in space, too. Now we know that The Milky Way is 200-400 billion stars, mostly far too far away for us to distinguish. They cluster into a vast flat disc shape in space. More, the whole disc is rotating around an immense central cluster of stars whirling around a colossal black hole. The size of the whole thing is mind-boggling.

Even more stunning, this spiral galaxy is our galaxy. Every star you can see from Earth is a member of that galaxy. Our sun, our planet and you are whirling through space two-thirds of the way from the central super-massive black hole. We're out in the galactic sticks, looking into the center when we gaze at the Milky Way.

Does this make you feel infinitely small? You are not alone in your galaxy gazing tonight. Scientists have just proven that a creature far smaller than you, an African beetle, looks right up at the Milky Way. They navigate by judging the direction the Milky Way crosses the sky. This is only the first galaxy-watching animal that scientists have identified. There are likely to be more.

How do you start star watching? Bundle up and look skyward for planets (this month's is Jupiter) and our neighborhood stars, then look for the Milky Way. They'll always be there for you.

Enjoy Guilford naturalist and children's book author Kathleen Kudlinski's daily nature notes and thoughts at her Pondside Place blog, www.kathleenkudlinski.com. Email her at Kathkud@aol.com or write to her c/o the Register, 40 Sargent Drive New Haven, 06511.